~ musings on the hand-written life

Monsieur Notebook: Affordable Luxury for Your Doodles

As I’ve mentioned here before, Monsieur Notebook asked me to review one of their notebooks. They sent me a sample and did not pay me for this review. It arrived last week so here is the review. All opinions are my own.

Monsieur Notebooks are the brainchild of Hide Stationery Ltd. in London. Their About Us section on their webpage lists lots of other reviews, all of which are worth a look; as well as this lovely piece of writing:

Once upon a time there was a notebook, a beautiful leather notebook that went on adventures. It was a tough notebook, and could withstand the roughest treatment. It journeyed around the world, recording the sights and sounds, sketches, stories and scenes with an intrepid globetrotter.

This notebook became much more than a souvenir.

I opened the package as soon as I got it at work. I’ll admit it; I was super excited. The first thing that struck me was the incredible colour, which I’m not sure translates in my photos. It’s emerald green with splashes of turquoise. On the website it’s called Turkuaz.

The notebook is A6 size (11 x 14.5 cm), Ruled, 90gsm ivory paper with 6 mm spacing; my first true A6 sized notebook, and I really like the size. Perfect for your bag and still big enough to be comfortable to write in.

These notebooks are sourced and handmade in India, of vegetable tanned leather. The black sleeve on the front goes on to say “providing fair incomes and sustainable jobs.”

The notebook comes with a matching ribbon bookmark and an elastic closure. There is no envelope on the back, which is fine with me; I hardly ever use those envelopes.

Great logo – monsieur is a mustached man with a monocle. Say that 5 times fast!

Great looking brochure, listing all the types of notebooks they carry.

The other side of the brochure.

In their marketing video (see my post of Aug 31) they mention the notebooks will lie flat if you flex the spine a little. Well I did and I think I did some damage to the first few pages.

See how the pages no longer line up on the right-hand side? No big deal but I thought I’d mention it. As well as the gorgeous frontispiece where you can put your name or a lovely inscription.

I guess I was a little over-zealous in my spine flexing!

Okay now for the good stuff. This paper is fantastic. Above you can see the results of my ink test. Very smooth, with no feathering or bleeding.

Little to no see through.

I have no hesitation in recommending these notebooks. If you are interested check out their Indiegogo campaign where they are offering incredible deals for pledges right now – with worldwide delivery included. My husband asked if I was going for the $1,900 pledge – tempting! But I’m thinking a nice little A5 with “inlovewithjournals” engraved on it; a steal at $35. Happy pledging!